Post navigation

Sneak Peek Extract: DISLOCATIONS by Eric Brown and Keith Brooke

DISLOCATIONS, the first volume of the Kon-tiki Quartet, tells the story of humankind’s last-gasp efforts to reach the stars, set against the backdrop of an Earth torn apart by looming environmental disaster . . .

Project Kon-tiki, the world’s first extra-solar colony expedition, is just weeks away from departure, and tension is mounting at Lakenheath Base. Psychologist Kat Manning is one of the eighteen specialist whose clone will be sent to the stars, and her job is to work with the original specialists, the ‘left behind’, to monitor and support them through their dislocation . . . But when Kat is kidnapped by the Allianz, a faction opposed to the colonisation program, more than just her safety is at stake. The entire mission is in jeopardy.

Sneak Peek Extract: DISLOCATIONS

TRAVIS DENHOLME LEFT HIS RENTED COTTAGE ON THE outskirts of Ely at three and arrived at Lakenheath Base forty-five minutes later. Dusk was falling, presaging another subzero January night. Even from a mile away, the halogen arrays illuminated the base with a glare that spread across the surrounding forest and obliterated any sign of the stars overhead.

The usual crowd of protesters was stationed on the approach road, their numbers increased due to the imminence of the launch. The local police and security guards drafted in by UNSA had done their job, and the two hundred noisy protestors were kettled behind carbonfibre fences well back from the road. Even so, the din of their voices increased as his car approached; just last week an activist had scaled the fence and flung herself in front of the little VW. The car’s systems had braked too late, and the woman had thumped into the grille and rolled over the bonnet, screaming her hatred through the windscreen. She’d dropped to the tarmac, picked herself up, and staggered off, seemingly unhurt, but Travis had been shaken by the incident.

As he neared the gate of the base, he passed the area to his right reserved for the protest leaders and their guests: B-list celebs attempting to up their failing profiles by identifying themselves with the Allianz. A dozen men and women stamped their feet around a plasma-burner, trying to ward off the Arctic blast, one or two of them turning to stare at his car as it braked before the gate. Beyond the small group, banners and placards gave voice to Allianz discontent: Project Kon-Tiki a Big Con, and Anarchists Against Colonisation.

Ute was there, as ever; tiny and looking perished in her green puffa jacket, a woolly hat pulled down over her ears. For a second, it seemed that their eyes connected, but he reassured himself that she wouldn’t be able to make him out through the side-window. He stared straight ahead at the slowly opening gate, wondering if he would have been on this side of the fence had Ute not finished with him ten years ago. The car rolled through the gate, braking before the second gate as the first closed behind him. A security guard stepped from a lighted kiosk, and Travis wound down his window and presented the biometric chip embedded in his metacarpus.

“Evening, Dr Denholme,” the guard said, scanning his hand.

“Here we go. Enjoy the party.”

Travis smiled. “I’ll do my best.”

The second gate slid open and the car drove on, Travis aware that he was moving from one world to another, from a world of deprivation and conflict to one of privilege—and, like a symbol of that privilege, a mile away across the frost-encrusted apron, the towering form of the shuttle stood beside the launch gantry. In four days the eighteen specialists would depart Lakenheath Base for the starship parked in geo-sync orbit, and a week later the Kon-Tiki would light out for the stars.